Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Tourism

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is not a place specifically oriented toward tourism, but the Vincentians appreciate that Saint Vincent and the Grenadines is a beautiful place and they welcome people who want to visit their islands.

But there are no big all-inclusive resorts. The area that most resembles a resort area is around Indian Bay and Villa beach. There are beaches that are convenient for swimming, even for little children, and there are a number of small hotels on or walking distance from the beach.

After we had visited St. Vincent for the first time we were so enthusiastic that I couldn't help writing about it. I made a website was built up with additions and corrections and patches. It had a kind of funky charm, but St. Vincent deserves something more coherent. There is a version on the web at [http://svg.8m.net], but I decided to put together more material and make this book.

We love St. Vincent because it isn't a tourism-oriented island--aside from being beautiful it is full of real people doing real things, most of whom don't pay the slightest attention to us. Why would we want to attract tourists?

The economy of St. Vincent and the Grenadines depends on agriculture, mostly bananas. The corporate giants Dole and Chiquita grow bananas on flat land in Central America using machinery and cheap labor . Caribbean bananas are grown on mountainsides and are hand-tended, so they taste better but leave more money in the producing country's economy. The US figures that profits for US corporations that exploit former colonial labor markets is more important than the economies of independent Caribbean countries like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.

The result is that the economies of several caribbean countries will be devastated to make it more profitable for Dole and Chiquita to exploit mainland central american labor. That means that St. Vincent has to take the tourist market more seriously

The Tropics

"...I know little of England, but the United States are pretty familiar to me; the two climates, I imagine, cannot be very dissimilar. That a man should wear himself to the bone in the acquisition of material gain is not pretty. But what else can he do in lands adapted only for wolves and bears? Without a degree of comfort which would be superfluous hereabouts, he would feel humiliated. He must become strenuous if he wishes to rise superior to his inhospitable surroundings."

"We think a good deal of strenuousness," objected the Bishop.

"Have you not noticed that whenever anything, however fantastic, is imposed upon men by physical forces, they straightway make a god of it?...The Eskimo doubtless deifies seal-blubber; he could not survive without it. ......We have only a certain amount of energy at our disposal. It is not seemly to consume every ounce of it in a contest with brute nature....

"Tell me, sir, how shall the mind be elevated if the body be exhausted with material preoccupations? Consider the complex conditions under which a Northern family is obliged to live. Think of the labour expended upon that unceasing duel with the elements--the extra clothing and footwear and mufflers and mantles, the carpets, the rugs, the abundant and costly food required to keep the body in sound working condition, the plumbing, the gas, the woodwork, the paintings and repaintings, the tons of fuel, the lighting in winter, the contrivances against frost and rain, the neverending repairs to houses, the daily polishings and dustings and scrubbings and those thousand other impediments to the life of the spirit! Half of them are nonexistent in these latitudes; half the vitality expended on them could be directed to other ends. ...

"Living in our lands, men would have liesure to cultivate nobler aspects of their nature. They would be accessible to purer aspirations, worthier delights. They would enjoy the happiness of sages. What other happiness deserves the name? In the [..Tropics...] lies the hope of humanity."

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

Introduction: Page 2

There is another blog on this site, Karleksblog, that will have some material about Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. It will be less organized than I intend this blog to be, but things are likely to appear there before they appear here. I think the easiest way to get to it from here is to go to my complete profile.

Introduction

This is a blog intended for comments specifically about Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, an island nation in the Windwards group of islands in the southern Caribbean. Saint Vincent and the Grenadines was formerly a british colony and is now an independent member of the Commonwealth.

We welcome comments that will correct or expand on the comments.

See also the web site at svg.karleklund.net for information about Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Much of that site is a few years old, so this blog will contain more recent material that hasn't yet been incorporated in a revised version. I will post some significant links in later blogs.